User:Ajfyb4/sandbox

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Cameron Maupin's Sandbox
User:Cmwxc/sandbox

Some Article Sources/Why we chose it
We chose Otto Von Guericke because it has almost no sources, leaves a lot of information out, and information is very disorganized.

A few possible sources from Summon (will probably have to look in more places because most on Summon are in German):

"Great Lives from History: Inventors and Inventions Otto von Guericke"-Joseph Dewey

"The live of Otto von Guericke and his achievements, available from Japanese Literature (A tribute to the 400th anniversary of his birth)"-Akira Miyahara

"Otto von Guericke"-Dennis Karwatka

"Dawn of Science: 15. The Invisible weight"- T. Padmanabhan

Article Evaluation
Otto von Guericke

Is everything in the article relevant to the article topic? Is there anything that distracted you?

The biography is hard to follow because everything is just lumped together and it seems to bounce around from topic to topic. It also makes statements like he held a position for "thirty years" but then doesn't say anything else he did through that.

Is the article neutral? Are there any claims, or frames, that appear heavily biased toward a particular position?

From what I have read, I think it is mostly neutral; however, there are phrases that I would change such as "he died peacefully" to make it sound more factual.

Are there viewpoints that are overrepresented, or underrepresented?

There is only a single sentence on his childhood all the way to college. I don't like the last sentence of the "Nature..." section because it mentions how an idea is like Newton's and then leaves you hanging with a quote.

Check a few citations. Do the links work? Does the source support the claims in the article?

There are not many citations, but the ones I clicked on seemed fine.

Is each fact referenced with an appropriate, reliable reference? Where does the information come from? Are these neutral sources? If biased, is that bias noted?

No, there seems to be lots of writing without sources.

Is any information out of date? Is anything missing that could be added?

No, I don't think it's out of date.I would split up the biography into sections so readers can find what they are looking for more quickly(i.e. personal life, career, etc.).

Check out the Talk page of the article. What kinds of conversations, if any, are going on behind the scenes about how to represent this topic?

Not much talk is going on at all.

How is the article rated? Is it a part of any WikiProjects?

It is a start class of high-importance.

How does the way Wikipedia discusses this topic differ from the way we've talked about it in class?

Notes to Myself about Parts of the Article I'm Working on
1. No idea what the "Rats Collegium of Magdeburg" is and still can't find any sources anywhere that reference it Ajfyb4 (talk) 16:27, 9 March 2018 (UTC)

Original Article Edits
These two sections (Early Life and Education and Personal Life) are a complete revision of the first paragraph in the biography section.

Early life and education (draft)
Otto von Guericke was born to a patrician family of Magdeburg. He was privately tutored until the age of fifteen. In 1617 he began studying law and philosophy at the Leipzig University. However, in 1620 his studies at Leipzig were disrupted by his father's death. He briefly returned home before continuing his studies at the Academia Julia in Helmstedt and the universities of Jena and Leyden. It was at Leyden that he first began attending courses on mathematics, physics, and fortification engineering. His education was completed by a nine-month Grand Tour to France and England.

Family (draft)
On his return to Magdeburg in 1626 he married Margarethe Alemann. Before Margarethe's death in 1645, they had three children together: Anna Catherine, Hans Otto, and Jacob Christopher. Anna Catherine and Jacob Christopher both died in infancy. Von Guericke later remarried to Dorotha Lentke in 1652. Ajfyb4 (talk) 14:02, 9 March 2018 (UTC)

Initial scientific investigations (draft: this will be the 2nd last paragraph in the bio, his "Later works and writings" will be last)
Von Guericke first started investigating the concept of a vacuum through the use of fire pumps by pumping water out of wooden barrels. However, he soon figured out that the porosity of wood was allowing unwanted water, filled with dissolved air, to enter. The pressure fluctuations experienced inside the barrel were allowing this encapsulated air to escape: spoiling the vacuum inside. In 1647 he turned his focus to pumping out enclosed air instead of water to solve this problem. Ajfyb4 (talk) 04:07, 5 April 2018 (UTC)

Other things to add that are not in the Biography section
This sentence will be added at the end of the third paragraph in "Electrostatic Investigations":

Unknown to them at the time, this "mysterious" attraction and repulsion they had been witnessing was actually electrical conduction.

This sentence will be added to the end of the second paragraph in "Air pressure and the vacuum":

It is estimated that by pumping the air out of these spheres, he was able to create internal pressures roughly equal to 1/25 of an atmosphere.

More Possible Sources

 * Isaac Asimov, Asimov’s Biographical Encyclopedia of Science and Technology, Doubleday, 1982


 * The Thirty Years War: A documentary History, Edited and Translated by Tryntje Helfferich


 * J Hakim, The Story of Science, Smithsonian Books, 2005.

Benjamin Franklin and Electrical Technology in the Age of Enlightenment, by Michael Brian Schiffer
 * Draw the Lightning Down

https://books.google.com/books?id=QQuk6bH2apcC&printsec=frontcover&vq=electrostatic&dq=otto+guericke&lr=&as_brr=0#v=onepage&q=otto%20von&f=false http://um9mh3ku7s.search.serialssolutions.com/?ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&ctx_enc=info%3Aofi%2Fenc%3AUTF-8&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fsummon.serialssolutions.com&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournal&rft.genre=article&rft.atitle=The+New+%28So-Called%29+Magdeburg+Experiments+of+Otto+von+GuerickeOtto+von+Guericke+Margaret+Glover+Foley+Ames&rft.jtitle=Isis&rft.date=1995-03-01&rft.issn=0021-1753&rft.eissn=1545-6994&rft.volume=86&rft.issue=1&rft.spage=110&rft.epage=111&rft_id=info:doi/10.1086%2F357111&rft.externalDBID=n%2Fa&rft.externalDocID=10_1086_357111&paramdict=en-US https://muse.jhu.edu/article/8005
 * Steven J. Harris. (1995). Isis, 86(1), 110-111. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org.libproxy.mst.edu/stable/236445
 * Forums of Validation and Forms of Knowledge: The Magical Rhetoric of Otto von Guericke’s Sulfur Globe

Political career
Otto Von Guericke's political career began upon returning to Magdeburg in 1626. His and his family were well known and well educated so Otto was appointed to be an Alderman of Magdeburg. He was forced to flee Magdeburg during the Holy Roman Empire's attack on the city in the Thirty Years' War. This attack destroyed most of the city and Von Guericke's personal wealth. Von Guericke returned to Magdeburg in 1631 and, because of his engineering background, led the rebuilding process of the town. After this rebuild he became a master brewer to begin rebuilding his and the towns wealth. In 1646 he was elected as Magdeburg's Burgomeister, similar to mayor. He remained in this position for more than thirty years until his retirement from office in 1678, after much pressure from younger politicians. During his time in office he went on many diplomatic missions to many Kings and Emperors of the time. In 1666 Otto Von Guericke was given aristocratic status by Emperor Leopold I, giving the Von to his name. Cmwxc (talk) 16:39, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

Diplomatic pursuits
Otto von Guericke used both his political status and scientific knowledge in tandem to make political gains for his town. His demonstrations of his inventions, such as the air pump and electrostatic generator were used to impress his audiences and allow for political communications to unfold. He often would not explain scientifically how his shows worked leading people to believe in his wizardry, promoting his status and a great leader. Cmwxc (talk) 03:25, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

During his diplomatic mission to Ratisbon in 1654, Guericke decided to use his invention of the air pump to impress those he was meeting and help sway the meeting in his favor as well as promote his own scientific advancements. Cmwxc (talk) 03:11, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

Peer Review by Ltorack (talk) 20:27, 18 March 2018 (UTC)

 * I like the idea of splitting the biography section into small subsections. It helps to identify and increases accessibility of information contained within bodies of text.


 * In the current Biography section this statement is at the end of the second paragraph, "A private scientific life, of which much remains unclear, was developing in parallel."
 * Maybe you could try and find some sources which have some information about his scientific pursuits during this diplomatically dominated time of his life.
 * Good use of references. The current article doesn't state where their included information comes from frequent enough.
 * Also, the article does not include a lot of sources total for the amount of material being covered. So your new sources will add more credibility to the displayed information.
 * Changes you have made read pretty well. The word choice/sentence structure of the article (Mainly the Biography section) was something that I thought needed to be changed.
 * What are your plans for the article? Are you adding content to just the Early life, Personal life and Political Career sections? Or are you going to rework the whole Biography section into these subsections?
 * Maybe you could reformat the information currently included in the Biography section and then focus on adding additional content to a the topics you've already started on.

Peer Review by Njg9r6

 * The first thing I notice is that the section title of "Early Life and Education" perfectly describes what that section is ultimately about. Great job selecting that title. The "Personal Life" title is also good, but based on the information contained in that section, a title that includes the word "Family" might work better.
 * I also found that you have done a great job including in-text citations frequently. The original article does a horrible job of citing sources, and you guys definitely have remedied that here. Some of these citations are actually from the same sources my article uses, so I know they are legitimate and credible.
 * This is not a huge critique, but you may consider linking the terms "mathematics" "physics" and "fortification engineering" to their corresponding wikipedia articles (fortification engineering may have an article that goes by a different name). This might just make it simpler for a reader to gather context.
 * The use of your various sources definitely feels well balanced in these shorter paragraphs. I would however make a small mental note not to rely too heavily on source number 3. I know for my article, this source has a lot of great information and it is easy to get carried away with using it. I know wikipedia frowns upon too much information from any one source, so just keep an eye out for that if you plan on adding more sections.
 * The information contained in each section you edited appears very thorough. Sentence structure is good, and the information is presented in a pleasantly brief and matter-of-fact kind of way. I would only suggest expanding a bit on the last sentence of "Early Life and Education" where the nine-month Grand Tour is discussed. It will not be immediately clear to most readers what a nine-month Grand Tour is, so a little info to explain that couldn't hurt. Otherwise, great job.

Response to Peer Reviews/Edits made
Ajfyb4 (talk) 16:37, 23 March 2018 (UTC) Cmwxc (talk) 16:43, 23 March 2018 (UTC)
 * 1) We linked to fortification engineering, math, and physics so the reader can have quick access to these topics.
 * 2) We changed the subsection capitalization to conform with Wikipedia's requirements.
 * 3) We will not add more about his Grand Tour. It was specifically given a link because describing it in the von Guericke page would be off-topic. Our sources also did not elaborate on his time studying abroad.
 * 4) We changed the "Personal life" subtitle to "Family" because it better describes the information within it.
 * 5) Our plan for this article is to completely overhaul the biography section and to add sources to all of the information (right now the entire article has almost nothing cited).
 * 6) Both reviews conflicted on if the sentence structure is appropriate. We decided to leave it unedited because it is solely meant to be factual not to entertain.
 * 7) We plan on working to add more about both his political life and accomplishments, his scientific advancements and their interconnections.